The UK’s National Landscapes teams want to see prosperous and resilient communities, living and working in nature rich and climate adapted landscapes. For this we need a planning system that supports affordable, sustainable homes, responds to local needs and protects landscape quality, and future-proofed development.

There is much the National Landscapes Association welcomes in the new National Planning Policy Framework (published 17 August 2026): 

• the recognition of the importance of National Landscape management plans in directing environmental opportunities and safeguards for inclusion in development plans, and in steering the location of development; - NPPF policy N1 (1)
• clarity that development proposals within protected landscapes should be limited in scale and extent, and that development within their setting should be sensitively located and designed; - NPPF policy N4 (1)
• clarity that proposals for major development within protected landscapes should be refused other than in exceptional circumstances, and where it can be demonstrated that the development is in the public interest; - NPPF policy N4 (2)
• clarity that the housing requirement in protected landscapes within a local plan need not be as high as the objectively assessed need, where there is a strong reason for restricting the overall scale of development; - NPPF policy S1 (1) (a) (i)
• the explicit identification of protected landscapes as exceptions where the presumption in favour of development within settlements would not apply. - NPPF policy S4 (2) (a) (ii)

There are also some key areas of concern:

• the change in the weight afforded to protected landscapes from ‘great’ to ‘substantial’, which may well cause confusion and greater delays to planning decisions (though we welcome the clarification in the Government’s published response to the NPPF consultation that even with the wording changes, protected landscapes will retain the same high level of statutory protection);
• conversely the failure to explicitly identify protected landscapes in the examples of where the presumption in favour of development in certain circumstances outside settlements should not apply, which again may well cause confusion and greater delays to planning decisions.